


In The Eyes Of Another

by raendown



Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 Drabbles [26]
Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-22 11:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21301646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Madara and Minato's budding romance as seen from afar.
Relationships: Namikaze Minato/Uchiha Madara
Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 Drabbles [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533161
Comments: 11
Kudos: 75





	In The Eyes Of Another

She saw them first because no one else wanted to serve them at the café. Masumi knew that there were lots of people resurrected during the war, that the dead walked the streets again and many were afraid to interact with them, but Masumi had a secret she had not told many people. She too had been brought back to life when the veil between worlds had weakened. What many had taken as a simple cold had in fact been a sickness deep in her lungs and Masumi passed in the night – only to wake the next morning in perfect health.

When the two men sat down in the café where she worked it did not occur to her to be afraid of them despite how so many others avoided their table. Uneducated, barely able to form her letters, Masumi knew nothing about either man and thought the fear of her fellow servers to be no more than the usual fear of the risen.

That first day she served them she marked their silence, the awkwardness with which they fiddled their cups around, the amount of times one or the other opened his mouth only to close it again without having said a thing. If she were inclined to guess she would have said they were on a blind date of some sort that wasn’t going well but Masumi wasn’t the type to guess at other people’s lives, though she did like to make her observations.

It was more than a month before she saw the men again. One with hair like a dark cloud that trailed behind him, mysterious yet magnetic, the other with hair the color of sunshine and eyes as blue as the sky on a clear day. They made quite a lovely image of contrast standing next to each other as they ordered a table and when Masumi smiled politely the blond man smiled back bright enough that she nearly dropped their menus. She wanted to laugh when the dark one scowled at her. His jealousy was clear enough that she wondered if her impression of their first date hadn’t been wrong.

From then on she grew to expect them in her tea house at least once a week. Darkness and light, they moved together like two halves entirely unaware of their own perfect synchronicity. They had eyes only for each other and Masumi cheered in her heart the day she finally saw the darkness smile for the light of his life. When they held hands across the table with matching spots of color on their cheeks she brought them cakes with their tea and refused to charge for the desserts, her own quiet congratulations.

Over time she learned their names from the whispers of others. Madara and Minato. An unlikely pair, or so she was given to understand, and she wondered if others could see what she could. How happy they made each other.

Masumi had never had an education. Born to a poor family, she had taken a job the moment she was old enough to follow her mother to the teahouse and wash dishes in the back sinks. She had no idea of the history between these two men, had never heard the stories of titans from past generations, dashing heroes or dastardly traitors. What she did know what the shine of a ring in Madara's hand when he presented it to Minato, the happiness in his face when his partner said yes.

What Masumi knew was that they were two men who made each other whole and happy and returned to her little rundown teashop once a week, rain or shine, no matter how many years passed all of them by. And she knew the smile in her own heart to watch such a beautiful love story unfold before her very eyes.


End file.
